Adam Turner is an award-winning Australian freelance technology journalist with a passion for gadgets and the "digital lounge room".

Windows Mobile has long been the Volvo of smartphone platforms, brimming with features but boring and ugly. It’s a reflection on WinMo’s clunkiness that the OS started to lose market share to touch-friendly alternatives such as iPhone and Android - even though these young upstarts initially trailed WinMo in terms of functionality. In the end it fell upon handset makers such as HTC to put lipstip on the pig, with WinMo skins such as Touch Flo and Sense UI.

Microsoft has gone back to the drawing board with Windows Phone 7, starting from scratch with an elegant touch-friendly mobile operating system. It seems a risky plan compared to Nokia’s strategy of giving its existing Symbian platform a touch-friendly make-over. Then again Symbian^3 on the Nokia N8 turns out to be a painful stop-gap measure as Nokia continues to polish its upcoming MeeGo operating system. Microsoft would cop flak if it did the same with WinMo 6.5, so perhaps now is the right time to draw a line in the sand and start again. Windows Phone 7 seems like a solid foundation on which Microsoft can built but, when it comes to real estate or smartphones, I don’t like to buy off the plan. WinPho7 needs to at least match the functionality of WinMo 6.5 before you’d consider upgrading, or switching from another platform, but I’ll get back to that in a minute.

I’ve been testing the LG Optimus 7Q - one of the first Windows Phone 7 devices to roll off the production line. Sitting in the reviewers’ workshop I dubbed the phone “Sheldon” as part of the set-up process - it seemed apt for a clever little device that has a penchant for Halo on the Xbox but is still working on its people skills.

The LG Optimus 7Q aka Shekdon features a slide-out, four-line QWERTY keyboard - one of the factors driving up the price. It’s one of the better slide-out QWERTY keyboards I’ve used, although I prefer a 5-line keyboard with dedicated number keys. It obviously adds to the bulk of the device, although it certainly doesn’t feel as clunky as my old iMate JasJam.

The Optimus 7Q’s keyboard features well-spaced keys that make it easy to type quickly with two thumbs. The position of the Function and Shift keys off to the left seems like an odd design choice, but I think it would grow on you. Along with the slide-out keyboard, the OS also features a decent onscreen QWERTY keyboard which works in both portrait and landscape mode.

After spending time with the clunky Nokia N8, the LG Optimus 7Q is a delight to use - it’s quick, responsive and generally intuitive. The 1GHz Snapdragon processor under the bonnet really helps the phone sing. The browser is brilliant, rivalling Safari on the iPhone. It’s an amazing achievement for a first effort, considering how long it took the Android browser to mature. Pinch to zoom is responsive on WinPho7’s browser and flick to scroll is smooth. Tap to zoom knows exactly what you’re trying to see and zooms in on elements of the page rather than the exact point you tapped. Unlike the Android-powered HTC Desire, columns of text aren’t reformatted on the fly as you zoom - so you can still read plenty of text. The Optimus 7Q’s 3.5-inch TFT LCD, 800x480 capacitive touchscreen display performs admirably, although text isn’t quite as crisp as the iPhone 4 and the contrast and colour accuracy also fall short. For example take a look at this photo of Peter Costello from this story;

On the iPhone 4 the skin tones are much more natural and the pin stripes much clearer than on the LG Optimus 7Q (the HTC Desire falls somewhere in between). The LG Optimus 7Q’s TFT display certainly handles outdoor glare much better than the Desire’s AMOLED offering.

Windows Phone 7’s onscreen keyboard is also an admirable first effort, it looks as if it was ripped straight from Android. The predictive text also behaves the same way as the HTC Desire, presenting a string of options below the text box as you type. Errors are automatically corrected, such as changing “tesy” to “test” if you miss that last t and hit y by mistake. This allows you type quickly without sweating over every key press. Unknown words are underlined in red, so you can tap on them later and call up a list of alternatives.

I’ve already written plenty about Windows Phone 7’s tile-based interface - Hands On: Windows Phone 7 - so I won’t cover all that ground again. I like the flexibility of the widget-style tiles far more than those on the Nokia N8, but they still fall short of the large widgets available for Android which make it easier to preview messages rather than just see notifications. The fact that Microsoft won’t let handset makers re-skin WinMo7 is a little frustrating.

As a device the WinPho 7-powered LG Optimus 7Q is a delight to use, but these days a good smartphone is as much about the ecosystem and the device - and this is where Windows Phone 7 is found wanting. Again I covered this in detail after the launch - Windows Phone 7 - too little, too late? - so I won’t go through it all again. In summary, old Windows Mobile applications won’t work with Windows Phone 7 - so you’re asked to throw away everything and start again. Unfortunately the fledgling Windows Phone 7 app store might not yet meet your needs. Worse yet, WinPho7 still can’t match the feature set of WinMo6.5. Four prime examples are the lack of cut and paste, the lack of tethering, the lack of Adobe Flash and the lack of multi-tasking for third-party apps. Early critics of the iPhone focused on the lack of these features when declaring the superiority of Windows Mobile, so it’s quite surprising that Microsoft wouldn’t strive to include them in the initial release of WinPho7. While someone upgrading from WinMo6.5 might appreciate the improved interface, they won’t appreciate that loss of functionality. Meanwhile anyone thinking of jumping ship from iPhone or Android will also feel the loss of functionality and the smaller app store offering.

As a first release, Windows Phone 7 is certainly more impressive than the first Android phone - the HTC Dream. The Dream felt like little more than a proof of concept, while my new friend Sheldon feels far more slick and polished. Windows Phone 7 is a solid first effort and certainly one to watch, but it depends on how much faith you have in Microsoft and how long you’re prepared to wait for updates to add missing features and flesh out the app store. Sheldon’s an exciting rookie in the smartphone game, but I’d be reluctant to take the plunge until Windows Phone 7 has a few runs on the board.

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15 comments so far

Most people buy a two year plan - those buying a WinPho7 are buying into what Microsoft will offer over the life of their phone. There are tens of thousands of Silverlight developers around the world developing for desktop, web and now phone using the same code-base. That means two years of serious application development and updates by serious developers, not just 15 year olds in their bedroom developing variations on ifart. My take is that there's greater risk in getting locked into another phone os for the next two years than there is in buying a Win 7 Phone.

Commenter

billybob

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 9:30AM

to the editor - Rotten spelling alert!! `the OS started to loose market share'. The verb is ` to lose' not `to loose'. Come on don't be lazy and don't promote ignorance. Spelling is a convention professional writers should adhere to.

Commenter

Spelling quibbler

Location

Darlo

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 9:48AM

"...and how long you're prepared to wait for updates to add missing features..."heh i laughed at that point as ive been waiting 3 years for mr jobs to add missing features to the iphone >:(

Commenter

simon

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 10:01AM

It was just a typo, fixed now.

Commenter

Adam Turner

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 10:24AM

@billybob

You're not seriously arguing that paying $129 x 24 is a good plan are you?

Fanboy's no matter what their religion are seriously demented.

Commenter

gkchump

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 10:30AM

I don't like the large tile interface. It's like giant lego blocks for kids because they're too young to use the regular size.

Commenter

Wiseguy

Location

Sydney

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 10:42AM

@billybob

The problem is that you're buying into 2 years of not knowing where it's going, where as iPhone and to a certain extent Android are years more mature in terms of the system and their app stores. Look at the US, from all reports the Palm Pre was a great OS, but unfortunately it was too far behind to catch up. It's quite a gamble to lock yourself into a 2 year contract and "presume" Microsoft will improve this OS in the right way, their record is very much hit and miss in that area.

Commenter

Dave R

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 10:48AM

Good article it shows Microsoft finally got a phone which can be competitive against Apple and Google, but still needs a few updates and more content to be a real goer.

This pretty much what I expected, they be a player but not the market leader. I think Google will be the winner that is the market leader due to the flexibility in it product.

Apple has the oldest interface and looking a little dated when compared to the competition innovation. But winning at the moment because of the content they can deliver, I think this will change once Google marketplace becomes bigger.

Commenter

AnthLC

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 11:02AM

@Dave R, the same certainly could have been said of iPhone and certainly Android at launch. WebOS (Palm, and now HP) was and is a great OS, the reason for lack of success was because the device did not have the broad carrier support and pertinently the marketing budget that Apple did and does. WebOS multi-tasking is light lears ahead of iPhone (I have used both significantly), hence Apple trying to headhunt to Palm multitasking engineers. That was the reason for the HP aquisition, hopefully they can afford the necessary support to Palm to make it work.

WinPhone 7 is a seminal shift in interface design and is a pleasing move away from (for lack of a better description) the 'App Fetish' engendered by other devices. It cannot and shout not merely be judged by its app marketplace because it emphasises integration.

While I wish the Dell VP would come to Australia, I will be picking up a Mozart (Telstra) or Trophy next week (Vodaphone really needs to let customers know when they will be available), to go with my Android devices (I need to devices to I get the best of both worlds). A $49 Plan seems reasonable in each case.

Can't wait till people unlease the potential of XNA, .NET and Silverlight. The Zune intetration is great (no more iTunes), and the Silverlight development that I have seen is nothing short of spectacular.

Commenter

Clarity

Location

Sydney

Date and time

October 29, 2010, 11:47AM

Does Win Phone 7 HTC models come with the offline maps like the HTC Desire HD?